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Tips For New Bloggers

Technically I’m still a ‘new blogger’ – I’ve been blogging on happyhollife for six months – but I’ve learnt a lot since I began and I thought I’d share what I know with anyone who is even newer than I am!

Plan, plan, plan!
Schedule posts in advance, plan them in a planner or diary and know when you need to be writing each post. I have a blog planner and I know what posts are going up each day until April and when I need to write them. It’s the worst feeling when you know you have to get a post out but have no idea what to write.

Get social
Love it or hate it, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ (etc) is key to bringing in traffic. My external traffic is mostly from Facebook, as I share my posts on my personal page my ‘like’ page and, depending on the context, in various blogging or beauty groups.

Communicate
Engage with your followers in the comments, ask questions and chat! Thank them for following you and try to invite engagement on every post. Engage on social media too! Also, make sure to comment on every blog post you read – not with ‘check out my blog’ because it’s sooooo annoying – with something with substance.

Looks are everything
At least in terms of your blog theme and pictures. An ugly blog or post with lots of text and no pictures (or even bullet points!) to break it up isn’t going to attract readers. We all like pretty things! Make your pictures as good as they can be – there are loads of free photo apps and websites to use to get your snaps looking professional. But even with gorgeous flatlays, you still do need well-written posts. Don’t neglect the quality of your writing because that’s the whole point of a blog!

Be consistent
A set schedule is so much better than random uploads – your followers know when you upload a new post, you’ll look more professional and you’ll feel a lot more organised. I believe it helps with google’s algorithms as well, but I can’t be 100% certain on that! Personally, if I saw someone that hadn’t posted in over 2 weeks without an explanation I’d probably unfollow them. Sorry!

Learn SEO
This is one of those things I need to get better at. Including keywords seamlessly into posts is an art form! Also, tags are really important. Keep them relevant and don’t do more than 15 per post. The last SEO-thing I know is that the file names of your images are important for search results as well, so make sure they’re relevant and they’re a keyword or phrase.

Have fun!
This is the most important bit. Blogging is so fun and as soon as it feels like a chore you need to do something different – refresh your blog and yourself. It’ll come across in your writing if you’re not enjoying yourself. Try not to focus on your follower count or hits. Just love what you’re doing!

I hope this post provided some sort of help to anyone who needed it! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me, either in the comments or by using my ’email’ form (find it in the top menu).